Vilnius Jews

The Vilnius Jews, also known as the Vilna Jews or Wilno Jews, were a community of Jews that lived in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius, once a major city of the Russian Empire. In 1836, 34.9% of Vilnians were Jews, one of the largest concentrations of Jews in the world; this equalled 15,991 people. The population of Jews would rapidly increase due to the urbanization of the 1800s, and the city remained an important Jewish community center until World War II. Vilnius became a ghetto under Nazi Germany, and the community was reduced from 40,000 people to zero by starvation, disease, street executions, and deportations, but a few hundred survived by joining the Soviet partisans or by fleeing to neighboring nations.